Like Wallpaper

An anthology of New Zealand short stories especially for teenagers. Being a teenager is arguably the most intense time in anybody's life. It's a powerful, highly concentrated time when small things can seem insuperable but huge things are often accomplished without effort. The writers of the twenty stories gathered in this anthology have all been there, done that. One is in fact still there, going through the teenage years herself. Each story here reflects an aspect of what it is to be a teenager in NZ. The settings are New Zealand homes and flats, local schools and roads, beaches, rivers, cities. But in another sense each piece is universal. Issues addressed in the stories range across aspects of peer pressure and friendship. Parents and family relationships feature as do young romance, sexuality, and death. There is a mixture of tone, voice and form. The writers include Jane Westaway, David Hill and Fleur Beale as well as some stunning newcomers such as Natasha Lewis and Samantha Stanley. This book isn't just for people from thirteen to nineteen years old. It offers twenty ways to understand and relive those very particular times of exuberance, turmoil and adventure.

About the Author :
Barbara Else is the author of numerous bestselling novels and books for children, and has edited a number of collections of stories for children, as well as an anthology in which top New Zealand writers talk about grandparenthood. With her husband, writer Chris Else, Barbara runs TFS, a Wellington-based literary agency and assessment service. She has been described by The New Zealand Herald as a funny novelist. Her humour is quieter, deeper, found in her dark, sardonic point of skew, in her quirky, wry vignettes that are a fond satire of modern middle class life and those who live it ... . Her first novel, The Warrior Queen, was shortlisted for the Montana New Zealand Book Awards. Her children s fiction has won a host of awards, including the 2012 White Raven Award and the 2012 NZ IBBY for The Travelling Restaurant. She was the Victoria University of Wellington Writer in Residence for 1999, received a Creative New Zealand Scholarship in Letters in 2004, and was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to literature in 2005.